Racing reverend gets his 1st win at Byron Dragway

Wednesday

Oct 30, 2013 at 12:00 PM

By Matt TrowbridgeThe Journal-Standard

BYRON — Randy Heinzeroth never intended to be a minister at Byron Dragway.

“It was my way of trying to get out of being a minister,” Heinzeroth recalled. “When God puts a calling on you, it’s a serious thing. I asked, ‘Do you think we can do it with drag racing.’ I figured, ‘No way is God going to go for this one,’ but everything lined up.”

Heinzeroth linked up with Racers for Christ, a national organization with chapel services, pastoral care and outreach services, for five years. Then someone donated a 38-foot recreational vehicle to him.

“When I got the RV, it became apparent that I needed to establish my own track ministry there so I could do a lot of outreach with the racers and fans,” said Heinzeroth, who also goes to car shows and “cruise nights,” when people bring their hot rods to a local McDonald’s or Dairy Queen.

Byron Dragway’s chaplain since 2007 stopped just preaching to the choir and joined himself this year when he began racing his 1983 Monte Carlo Super Sport. That, too, was not originally by design.

At least not Heinzeroth’s design.

Heinzeroth, who once restored a 1967 Camaro “from the ground up,” had just finished restoring his Monte Carlo and upgrading it with an engine and transmission from a 2001 Pontiac Trans Am. He took it to Byron one weekend just to see how it ran and was spotted by Barry Fisher, a former track champion in the Pro division.

“I made about five passes that were very, very consistent,” Heinzeroth recalled. “Barry Fisher looked at all of those time tickets and raised his eyebrows. He said, ‘Do you have any idea of what you have on your hands here? You have a weapon. You need to be racing this car.’

“It took just that little bit of coercion. I’m there anyway, so I gave it a try. My goal was just to finish in the top 10.”

Heinzeroth finished a close third in the Street Eliminator division with 53 points to 55 by Noel Norup of Rockton and 54 for Paul Zimmerman of Woodstock.

The man simply listed as Rev. Randy in the track standings also advanced through six rounds to win his first race on the final weekend.

“That was unbelievable,” Heinzeroth said. “The whole season, we were trying to get my car even more consistent. I was constantly tuning and doing modifications on the car to make it more competitive.”

Track owner B.J. Vangsness said such attention to detail made Rev. Randy a contender.

“He was always coming out on off weekends when there wasn’t racing and practicing, practicing, practicing,” Vangsness said. “He really committed himself to doing better. He also studies a lot of other cars and racers.”

The Street class competes in bracket racing, where drivers estimate their time and the winner is whoever comes closest to his prediction. Heinzeroth even bought a hand-held weather station to help him gauge outside factors such as wind, temperature and humidity.

“I kept at it, knowing I would eventually figure it out,” Heinzeroth said. “It’s really cool to finally get a win after chasing it all year. Unfortunately, it was the last race. Now I’ve got to wait until next May to race again.”

Becoming the Racing Rev. has helped Rev. Randy in his ministry, which includes the website sanctuaryofspeed.com.

“People want to know they can relate to you and I can relate to them,” he said. “Now that I am in the staging lanes with my own car, it’s given me a whole new level of appreciation of what’s going on. When other people are there to test and tune, they come over and look at my car and we start chit-chatting. They will notice I have a red cross on my chest and it says ‘Chaplain Randy.’ They’ll ask if I race.

“Yeah, we like to have fun, too. It’s allowed me to do even more ministry work.”